AwakeEnergyScouter

All, naturally, true, but I wanted to thank you @skeptic for causing me to read this particular section. Thinking of some recent conversations about acceptable cub squirreliness, I'm not crazy after all, and it's always good to know I'm not the only one who thinks simply meeting the sacred in nature develops spirituality 😃

Yes, yes, and yes, happening right now as we speak in the US and has been happening for literally over sixty years elsewhere. There is ample proof of concept here - this is a weak argument unless you have data showing that a large enough fraction of parents to cripple Scouting America as a whole refuse to send their children to youth activities that only have other children that are just like their child demographically. And even if you did, it's an argument pertaining to the goal of growing or maintaining Scouting America the organization as opposed to preparing youth to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law. And like DuctTape said, parents centering identity politics over a quality alternative learning program isn't really the fault of Scouting America. If the parents in your community can't stand doing things with people that aren't just like themselves in every way, then arguably they were never interested in scouting in the first place. We have always been a movement consisting of different "categories" of people - remember that Brownsea deliberately included scouts of different socioeconomic status. The current WOSM reference document The Essential Characteristics of Scouting starts with this BP quote that I'm sure you've heard before, in the context of Messengers of Peace if nothing else: The first paragraph reads Scouting isn't equally popular everywhere because our ideals aren't equally popular everywhere. But we don't compromise our values just because they're unpopular in some particular place. That's a key strength of our movement. The implied proposal you seem to be making is that while you agree that trans and cis kids are equally important and valuable, we should exclude the trans kids (and perhaps everyone else who isn't able-bodied, cishet, at least middle class, etc) anyway because the parents of the cis kids don't want their kids hanging out with trans kids. Is that correctly restated? Sorry to hear that your troop is having problems, but my unit has to my knowledge 100% straight cis kids and plenty of boys whose parents are happy to have them there, are happy to have them share a campsite with the girls, and wives of male leaders who don't have a problem with them going camping with us female leaders (and vice versa). (To be fair, I don't really care what their sexual orientation is and they're cubs so I could be wrong about that 100%, I'm not really seeking that information.) Heck, one of the probably straight cis boys who's having a hard time got a man to man emotional intelligence talk from one of the male leaders recently. We've had a good recruitment season and have now made up the losses we suffered after COVID. Are you sure that you're framing your unit's problems correctly in the first place?

The assumption is that boys and boy parents don't want to scout with girls. That's obviously not generally true (most scouting programs are fully coed, and I personally know boys and boy parents in Scouting America that want to scout with girls so it can't be the case that all the anti-girl scouts congregated in this NSO), so this claim needs quantification and justification to be taken seriously.

So, SO awkward though. And... doesn't feel true. The absolute vast majority of people are cis. Nobody - literally nobody - thinks that cis girls are boys, so how can they be boy scouts? The term is arguably unclear. I wasn't a boy scout as a youth. Any my male patrolmates weren't girl scouts. And we also weren't hermaphrodite scouts. We were all just scouts. What we were doing was way more important than what gender we were. Taking gender as the primary lens on life and then viewing scouting through it is a mistake. In a scouting context, make scouting the primary lens on life and leave gender to be one of many, many secondary characteristics of scouts. Gender is not the prism through which everything must be seen and understood.

I think we're all struggling with this. I have found myself saying and writing "cub scouts" more (for cub scouts, of course) whereas I used to just say "scouts" about them, and "the regular scouting program" about what is formally called Scouts BSA and trying to reserve "scouts" for those older youth. But I can see that my division of cub scouts being "extra" and Scouts BSA being the "regular" program isn't necessarily how others around me think about it so I don't know that I'd recommend that last bit. I suppose the way it used to be way back when cub scouts were wolf cubs and blue-winged butterflies makes it clear in that 'scout' isn't even in the name for those, but it would be a real bad idea to give up the US Cub Scouts brand when there's nothing particularly wrong with it. But, certainly, to me 'scouts' is the patrol-method-using thing above all else, so while it doesn't solve the problem directly I do think that adding that 'cub' for cub scouts can help with clarity.

This seems to be generally true. Once the rules start requiring gender segregation, suddenly you have an operational problem if you don't have a critical mass of girls (to be clear, we also care about and value the presence of boys in Scouting America units, but because it used to be the case that all units were 100% boys there are already a lot of boys in the organization such that best I can tell nobody is struggling to serve them), and it's hard to get that critical mass in one go. We had a scout in my unit be the only one who couldn't tent with another scout at Webelo-AOL "transition" summer camp and had to tent with a parent. That happened because of the genders of who happened to sign up from our unit as well as the added complexity for the camp to track and match gender in each campsite and operational den. The scout was promised a tentmate by the camp, and the scout was excited to meet them until the point close to bedtime that it became clear that they weren't coming. The camp had moved the pack with the other lone girl to another campsite and patrol without noticing that it broke the gender pairing. TBH I can't blame them. It's too much.

I agree completely, and wish I had a strong answer for that last question.

All the other data ring true, so my guess is that the abuse question data are also good. I have never seen an ad like that, but I'm also a cord-cutter, so I was never going to if they were only on TV. Online, we all experience very different ads, and parents who weren't in Scouts as youth obviously wouldn't be targeted by the lawyers, so... Maybe the TV ads weren't making as big an impression on parents of current youth as it might have seemed? I just realized yesterday while selling popcorn that at last some of the people who think we're selling cookies literally do not know that Scouting America exists. I thought they had scouting so gendered in their minds that girls in any kind of scouting uniform=Girl Scouts=cookies, but apparently I'm not just telling people who didn't know that girls can be Scouting America members but also telling people that we exist. That took me aback a little, and I was wondering if that was just those two people, but after watching this video it would seem that really is a problem. They don't think about us at all. That also explains why the boys also get asked if they're selling cookies. They don't think about us at all. I'm glad to hear what's in that presentation and it sounds like they get it. Relaunch the brand is exactly what's needed. People need to know who we are and what we do - accurately. I have had to explain to more than one prospective or new parent that one does not have to be a Christian to join Scouting America. The truth is that out of the people who know we exist, a lot of people have an inaccurately narrow view of whom scouting is for. That also needs fixing if we want to grow, and I'm so glad that they seem to realize that.

It seems that way to me as well. When I was a scout myself, I didn't even register a lot of the leadership training as such, because it was just something to deal with in order to go on epic adventures. Like I think a good number of folks have said repeatedly before here, the kids aren't signing up for leadership and character, it's what they get in the process of the sausagemaking. The kids want ADVENTURE. A Chief Scout that radiates cool suitably dangerous adventure is a great messenger for that reputation. I haven't surveyed all NSOs and MOs of course, but I don't think it's a coincidence that both Scouts UK and Scouterna are growing, are culturally "around", and are selling primarily outdoor adventure. When Scouts are mentioned in Swedish entertainment and news media, we're portrayed as fit, competent, and organized at survival skills. One match fire, all that jazz. We are always portrayed outside. I saw my now cub scout perk up when they saw that in children's shows. They're almost certainly not alone. When I see Scouting America portrayed in US media, it's mostly around civic/patriotic themes. That isn't bad, but it isn't alluring to the children the way outdoor adventure is. The parents probably like to see that, but becoming known in our local communities as the premier arranger of outdoor adventures for youth is probably strategically important if we want to magnetize kids. Now, a cool Chief Scout isn't the only way to create that reputation, of course. We scouters can talk up the adventure we're arranging to people in our communities. Our pack had a strategy discussion last year about leaning into outdoor adventure and (age-appropriate) responsibility for making it happen last year, and we're all heartened to see that the program bar for outdoor adventure has gone up to about where we wanted to put it. We're geared up to offer all the fishing adventures on both campouts and separate fishing trips this year so that we're offering camping, fishing, and hiking on a monthly basis. We need to beat REI and all the various get outdoors groups in terms of reputation as a great on-ramp to outdoor skills. We should be people's #1 choice for that.

Thanks for the reminder about stakes - I'll need the Texas summer tent the weekend before for a pack campout, so the gear and list check will be quite complete (I'll do the campout laundry and immediately re-pack it all, I figure), but we ended up leaving a lot of stakes behind last time we used it because I let the cub scouts use it as a hangout tent to get them some bonus practice with setting up and taking down a tent without adult help. They were less diligent in remembering the stakes it turned out! I need to replace them or I'll be sorry if there's any wind. Boots are broken in already. Camp chair is ready. Practicing scales and reminiscing over old scout songs now... See you on the trail!

Signed up for Woodbadge together with two other scouter friends from our pack. The course director is a commissioner who was formerly den leader and current pack parent, so I expect this to deepen existing friendships as well as build new ones. Can't wait to go. Just need to get that part C done and get a new tetanus shot...

I've got a field report on this potentially very good aspect of the new program. I'm sure more will roll in as we all execute it, but as Cubmaster of a pack with one particular den that's tiny and without a parent willing to step up to lead it I'm quite keen on seeing how I can lift some advancement into pack meetings as well as provide that tiny den with a quality program without overloading anyone. We tried doing the "vanilla" swimming adventures as a pack during our annual pool party, and it mostly worked well. In particular, the adventures are structured such that we basically dangle loops/pins as a reward for really engaging with Safe Swim Defense and executing the scout-tangible parts completely. We have never had such scout focus on swimming safety at that pool party! So, thumbs up on that part. However, the suggested activities that were worksheets were less engaging, shall we say. We got through it, but I can see that whoever wrote the Webelos swim defense worksheet didn't know some voodoo magic that I don't when it comes to making fun worksheets for kids. I think I will continue to try to come up with non-worksheet activities, but the success of the structure is perhaps more important. We also knocked out the cardio requirement of the personal fitness adventures at the first pack meeting. Super easy and fun for the scouts, all done at once. Thumbs up. In fact, if we do some more silent hiking in the hiking club, we can also move that requirement out of den meetings, leaving only 15 minutes of strength training for den meetings! (We made the health form reviews homework if families didn't do it when asked at the first pack meeting also.) We've knocked some of those out first thing before for multiple dens, and that was very hectic and crazy. This is much better.

I don't see youth with behavioral issues as being connected to nondiscrimination at all. They're not the same topic. Maybe this is a cultural thing. I thought that the US shared a value foundation with Sweden (and wider Europe) and thus also with Scouting, but perhaps some parts of the US do not? A whole bunch of you here seem to be framing "inclusiveness" in a way I've never heard or seen it framed before in my life. I didn't live in the US in the 90s, so I can't speak to what was happening here "on the ground" but I remember the 90s as the decade when LGBTQIA+ discrimination awareness went mainstream. Pride parades, support hotlines, special youth support at government activity centers, lots of media coverage about the suffering that the anti-LGBTQIA+ bullying caused, the increased suicide rates, all that was in the news a lot, and it triggered both near universal social acceptance of being LGBTQIA+ as well as legal changes (first registered partnership and then marriage equality). It seemed like a societal "oh, whoops, so sorry" moment. Since then, opposing LGBTQIA+ discrimination is among the most milquetoast social stands one could take - up there with opposing bullying of differently abled people and donating to Save the Children. I looked up some numbers on this to see if my perception might reasonably be shared by Swedes in general, and that is indeed the case. 94% of Swedes agree that LGBTQIA+ people should be accepted in society.1 Among supporters of the far-right populist party literally founded by a returning old Nazi after WWII, that support is very low at only 80%, not surprisingly since their whole outlook is centered on discriminating against almost everyone.1 Their supporters have made news by stealing a Pride flag off a flagpole and burning it, for example. These would also be the party getting Russian dark money, that had to institute a uniform ban at meetings, and whose now former leaders were photographed sieg heiling in brown uniforms at a secret training camp. Their members often defect to a party even further right that openly advocates for destroying democracy in favor of national socialism. I say all this to thoroughly explain my next point, which is that to me this is a straightforward, uncontroversial in mainstream society Duty to Country point to support full LGBTQIA+ rights and social inclusion. It's hardly just progressives who support it, it's all of mainstream society! The voices raised against it are the ones on the margins of society kicking up a stink about something for political purposes. The six EU values2 include equal rights and respect for the human dignity of all, so that's not exactly my personal interpretation, it's the standard interpretation in my cultural universe. Support for equal civil rights and social acceptance of all groups of people is a governance/strong civil institutions matter, opposed not to kicking disruptive kids out but being jailed, fired, or treated poorly for some detectable and unchangeable thing like appearance, gender, sexual orientation, disability, neurodivergence, etc. As such, related to freedom of speech, democracy, and in this serious security situation in Europe defending our values and our institutions from attempts at weakening them by a foreign power. The exclusion we're trying to avoid with inclusion is modelled on the other side of the eastern Finnish border, complete with the general effects on society of not having strong civil rights for individuals. They don't call us Gayrope for nothing - our support for liberal democracy is inextricable from our support for equal civil rights for all. They know that and we know that. And the reason this is so is the Holocaust. We Europeans took Niemöller to heart. If LGBTQIA+ rights aren't secured, how do I know mine are? Etc, etc. I have to come to help the first group targeted if there's to be anyone left to help me later, because there's always some just-so story explaining why such and such group is evil. And if you look - which I highly suggest that you do - you will find that WWII also changed some of BP's outlook, not surprisingly, given how the discovery of the death camps made a kink in European history in general. We no longer say that scouts are to follow directions unquestioningly, because of the Nuremberg Trials. We realized collectively that we didn't actually literally mean that, there was an unspoken context asterisk on that that we needed to verbalize and say clearly, and not just in scouts but in society at large. Brush your teeth without whining every night, but say NO when someone asks you to kill thousands of civilians for belonging to some ethnic or political group. We were always thinking about brushing your teeth and packing your own stuff when we said that, not genocide or agreeing to keep secrets about CSA. So now we clarify. I saw in the Pew Research study (1 below) that the US is quite the outlier when it comes to attitudes to LGBTQIA+ people among what we used to call Western countries during the Cold War, and that both age and being Christian makes people less accepting. I don't know where any of you live, but based on what Eagledad wrote, perhaps he and some others here live in a particular cultural bubble where you think of equal civil rights for all citizens very differently. I say bubble, because this forum is the only place I hear these opinions. I've lived in the US for 20 years and the Americans I meet, including in Scouting America, seem to share my view of the importance of equal civil rights for all citizens. 72% of Americans say that LGBTQIA+ people should be accepted in society.1 Trying to exclude them from Scouting America is, as Krone said, limiting. If you're looking around and everyone around you is anti-LBGTQIA+, then know that your community is not representative of wider society. Bubble may also describe your experience of scouting if you think exclusion of certain groups is key to good and proper scouting. The values I was taught as a scout in the 90s were what I say above, and wouldn't you know it there is a fleur de lys on my old worn scout shirt. It's not a WOSM vs WAGGGS thing. There have already been literally millions and millions of coed WOSM (and WAGGGS, I also have a trefoil on my scout shirt) scouts, LGBTQIA+ scouts, scouts in every imaginable skin color, scouts with nontheistic religions and atheist scouts. It's a fait accompli, decades ago. The choice Scouting America has isn't whether or not to allow that in scouting, it is whether or not to follow the societal and/or scouting mainstream. WOSM explicitly says that tolerance is a key scouting value3 and has a whole position paper on it.4 We explicitly advocate for gender equality and LGBTQIA+ rights. This seems to be news to many of you. Of course we are, we have been for decades. It's Duty to Others (Duty to Country and doing a Good Turn) and living by the Scout Law. Going back to the start of this thread and what Navybone said about it, complaints about hypothetical events from which boys are banned, or declined to have an equivalent event for them, from the same individuals that think that exclusion/discrimination is a key part of scouting and who repeatedly say they want to reverse the membership policy changes ring very hollow. It comes off less as a principled stand and more as an attempt to build momentum to do just that - kick now registered scouts out of Scouting America. Not cool, guys, not cool. And that's completely unrelated to the need to manage disruptive kids in scouts. Now that's an issue I would be interested in discussing. Where should one draw the line between normal, age-appropriate squirreliness (which admittedly can make it hard for them to get things done at the younger ages) and real disruption for which one gets asked to leave? Not sure I have a handy-dandy suggestion, but in our unit we stay in close touch with parents about any neurodivergence as well as to ask them to help manage their child's behavior as needed and so far I that has worked, but it's probably a matter of how bad the kids are and obviously won't work at all in Scouts BSA. 1 https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-on-homosexuality-persists/ 2 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20210325STO00802/eu-values-explained-in-one-minute 3 https://www.scout.org/what-we-do/young-people-and-communities/diversity-and-0 4 https://learn.scout.org/resource/diversity-and-inclusion-position-paper

What specifically about the program today would you not consider scouting?

I don't know that people believe Scouting America scouters or Scouting America national for that matter when you say that scouts are scouts. It's true - or should be. When it hasn't been, it's been a serious mistake on the part of Scouting America. I completely agree that scouts are scouts. But since it actually, sadly, has been the case that Scouting America profiled itself primarily on exclusion for decades, it's not exactly believable to the public (whom we're trying to recruit to join scouting) that Scouting America just now got with the program and their own Scout Law and Oath and is truly welcoming to all. You can't just turn around and say "mea culpa" and expect to be believed. The fastest way to fix this is specifically reaching out to the people Scouting America is known for excluding to say "hi, we really would welcome you if you like to join. Sorry about that." I do not believe that all Scouting America scouters and staff actually believe that scouts are scouts either and I'm a scouter myself. This very forum is full of examples in writing. I'm honestly surprised that so many are suddenly saying what has seemed taboo to say, that scouts are scouts. There's years of pro-exclusion image to undo in the public eye, and I would suggest we hop to it.